As Hollow as a Chocolate Rabbit
by Echo Chambers
Summary: "I was floating some where left of center - somewhere outside of myself - watching my body walk through the motions of life."  Prentiss.  Very OOC Prentiss.  This follows feelings and thoughts that can lead up to, and come after, self injury/cutting.


Reid… I need to talk. Ha ha. What a joke. I don't need to talk. I need to get over myself. This is pathetic. None of the other's are acting this way. God! Why am I so weak? Weak pathetic stupid. Stupid stupid stupid! Nothing is wrong. We caught the guy. We saved a child. So why do I feel like such a failure? God… such a _Failure. _I feel… I feel so worthless. So… empty. Empty. If they looked inside me, what would they find? Is there even bone in there? Muscle, tissue, blood? What if… what if I came open and all there was, was SPACE. What if there's nothing inside? Like an empty cylinder - just the skin but no innards?

No. NO! I am NOT going to think this way. Of COURSE there is stuff inside me. I wouldn't be alive if there wasn't. But - what if I'm not alive? What if it's all in my head? I don't feel anything. Is that really living? I am breathing. Of course I'm alive. But - what if the air is just rattling around in a hollow chest - no lungs, just a huge space where my organs should be. My feet tingle so distantly - is that a cold breath tickling the inside of my feet - am I so hollow that I am like a chocolate rabbit - empty from my ears to my toes? I feel like I am a thousand miles away, and that there is this… Body. Prentiss' body, that is just sitting there, empty.

Will anyone notice I am empty? I wonder what they will think when they find I have left a shell behind and moved into air - a gaseous being - formless, invisible. I wonder if Reid will have an explanation for this sci-fi phenomenon. I wonder if it's mentioned in Star Wars. I should have watched that movie before I lost my body. It is so hard to focus my mind now without any physical boundaries to keep my thoughts in one place…

"Prentiss," Hotchner appears in my vision. A hand touches the shell of me and I can see my eyes blink in front of me - a quick flash of a dark screen obstructing my view of the world. "Prentiss." he says again. I want to respond, but can I? I am so far away… I feel a deep breath rattle through my body and move my chest up and down in an Olympic feat. The robot shell opens her mouth.

"Yes, sir?" The noise of the shell's voice screeches in my ear. It is perfect. It sounds like how I used to sound. Prentiss the Robot is perfect - not a tone is off. I watch from the ceiling as an invisible spirit gas as Hotchner says:

"We landed. Are you okay?"

"Oh, sorry about that. I guess I got a bit lost in thought. I'm fine sir." The robot laughs lightly, smiling a bit as she stands up with her bag and pulls her keys from the outer pocket. She is smooth, I note in awe. One smooth, lying robot.

"Alright. Are you okay to drive home?

"Yeah. I'm good. Thanks though. My place is only a couple of miles away any ways." Hotchner and the body walk down the jet's stairs and out into the parking lot. She walks with Hotchner to his car, and then continues past to her old truck. She knows he was watching, so she turns and smiles with a good-bye wave before she steppes into the truck.

The headlights of Hotchner's car turn on and I feel them splintering through my being. I feel dizzy. It is hard to focus with the light particles slipping in between the molecules of my Self. The robot is doing well though, she turns on the ignition, flips on her own head lights, and turns the radio onto the country station I always listen to. Routinely, she navigates the roads home - checking her mirrors and speed perfectly as though she is me and I am still okay. Hovering all around her in the truck, I try to take her over again. To reclaim my body.

I try to feel the skin of her palms against the steering wheel. I try to remember the pressure of the foot against the gas pedal. Against her ear I attempt to whisper into the space of her head where a brain should be kept; I try to say that I love her. That I want to have her once again. There is no response. She keeps driving, using turning signals as if nothing is distracting her in the least bit - as if nothing is missing.

When it begins to rain, she flips on the windshield wipers like - like the robot is saying "_I don't need you_" loud and clear. I am falling apart - dispersing into the air and loosing the vague cloud shape I had to begin with. In vain I even attempt to slip inside her on one of her breaths - to re-inhabit my original home in her chest. Nothing works. She reaches the apartment complex and parks. She steps from the truck and remembers to turn off the lights and grab her bag and lock the doors. She walks up the correct stair case and straight to my door with no hesitation. Everything says - _I can function find without you. Better even. Because last week you made me lock the keys in the truck and that was embarrassing. Who needs you? I don't._

On a breeze that smells of rain and city pollution, I stalk after her into the apartment.

And finally, I witness her freeze.

Ha! I tell her. You don't know what to do now, do you? Well, I am not telling YOU. You're supposed to put the bag in the closet and brush your teeth and wash your face and pour yourself a drink and turn on the music player. But no, you are LOST without me! You empty, stupid thing!

But, even as I rant, the robot seems to find her direction once again. On stiff legs, the shell leaves the bag at the door and walks into the bathroom where the mirror catches her eye. Hesitating… she creeps forward until her nose is a hairs width from its reflection. The body stands there, its breath fogging up the glass. Brown eyes stare deep into their picture, seeing past the black center and golden flecks to see her FLAWS. Around her head I stare with the robot, whispering into her empty head:

You don't even have wires. You are Hollow. Empty. A SHELL. Can you see it? Look deeper. There is nothing there. Nothing Real. Those cases - you didn't 'compartmentalize'! You couldn't even hold the emotions long enough to _feel_ them, because which ever organ holds Feelings has been decomposing for a long time. And these last two cases… that's when it began to metastasize. The decomposition spread to the next organ, and the next until you lost your heart and stomach and liver. Until your muscle disappeared from the bone and your very arteries seeped out of your skin in a muddy sweat you washed off in the shower. You are Empty.

Your bones vibrated to gaseous vapor as you shivered on the mountain side. They escaped on your breath - white fog of bone molecules dispersing into frigid air. And me… the Self you once had - I'm outside of you too. Don't you see how empty you are? I ran from the decomposition and escaped through your eyes and raced for the stars. I am in the atmosphere around you, I watch you, Robot, make it through your public stunts. But you can't fool me. You are LOST too. Lost, lost, lost, lost…

"NO." the robot's voice is my old one: hard and in control. "I am not empty. I am alive. I am breathing. Of course I have innards. A robot - what a joke,"

And I realized she HAS heard me, all evening she has felt my whispers. They have simply been whisked out of her by movement and words and the tasks that she did to keep the facts from sticking to the inner-edge of her skin outline.

Don't you feel the Space inside you? I say. The shell looks inside her reflected eyes. Her gaze travels across her face and down her torso. All those bodies you have seen… You know someone Real would feel something. You don't though. Why is that? You know why. There is nothing inside you to Feel it, is there.

"No, no," the shell whispers, her voice cracking. Her fingers pull harshly at the buttons of her shirt. She is pulling it off, standing in a white tank top and black work slacks. She feels the v of her collarbone. The fingers move down to the dip between her breasts and up to the left area where her heart should be. Her fingers press, feeling for a beat. A single heartbeat to prove it…

Nothing I whisper. There is nothing inside you.

And she is sinking. Falling from her place before the mirror, she hits her knees to the tile floor beside the cabinet. She is shaking. The shell moves. I watch her pull it from its sheath at her ankle. I hear her rattling breaths fill the silent room and feel the yellow light focusing the entire bathroom on the exposed arm. _No. No. _I could see her face saying.

The blade cuts.

An intake of breath, sharp and quick -

And I am Inside once more. I look at my arm. It is bleeding quickly now. I stare, a smile - small and open mouthed - lights my features and I can feel my eyes open and relax. I lean back against the counter, holding my arm out between my legs to keep my slacks clean. I let it drip onto the floor - tile isn't hard to clean. I am not empty any more. The blood that moves so slow and steady from the top of my exposed forearm to slip around the side and drip drop-by-drop to the floor with a tiny 'plop' is proof. I have opened my body up and looked inside and isn't empty space. There is tissue. There is blood. There is blood that moved inside me in a flow of Life, pushed and pulled by a steady heartbeat.

I can feel it. It is beginning to sting a bit. I breathe deep and slow and steady. It feels so… good. So Right. Not pleasurable, but Perfect. Relaxing. Right. Just RIGHT. And I am inside me once again. Not a robot, not a shell. I am Me, Prentiss, real, alive, and feeling. Everything is going to be alright.


End file.
